Speak of the devil. Last week when I wrote about Cloudmark’s SMS spam hype, I thought I made a good case, noting that the majority of marketers follow industry-accepted best practices, and that the price of sending texts will greatly limit SMS spam-senders.

But it’s easy to use fear to cause good intentions to veer to the dark side. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” and all. That’s what could happen, though, with a new proposed federal law aimed at curbing SMS spam.

The act, called m-SPAM and introduced by U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe and Bill Nelson, wants to restrain marketers from sending unwanted texts to consumers. No one can argue with that. But the law as proposed could unintentionally harm legitimate marketers–those who only send messages to people who’ve opted in to receive them–and even consumers who wanted those texts offering a coupon, entry to a party, or other discounts or specials.

How would this harm honest mobile marketing campaigns? As our CEO, Jared Reitzin, told Mobile Marketer, “I’m extremely against having wireless numbers on the do-not-call list, it’s absurd… They’re going to charge people to scrub against it? Will they offer APIs we can automatically scrub against? How long is it going to take to get your data back? That will be shot down… Overall the m-SPAM Act is probably a good idea to establish best practices, but not going to stop spam.”

Legislators should work with mobile marketing leaders to create the most effective law, one that will criminalize mobile spammers while supporting the efforts of honest SMS marketers. Carriers should weigh in too, since SMS marketing is one of the reasons why texting has become such a revenue-driver for them. Marketing experts should write to their own Senate and Congressional representatives, explaining what lawmakers need to consider when crafting the federal statute.

Those on the Hill shouldn’t be quick to rush in heavy-handed.

The Mobile Marketing Association has extensive plans to boost itself–and the mobile marketing space–for the coming year, with a new leader, a soon-to-be home base in New York, and work on creation of updated best practices for U.S. marketers.

Mike Wehrs last week was named MMA’s new president and CEO. The former vice president of Nuance Communications, which is known mostly for its voice-recognition technology, seems to have hit the ground running. Reports indicate that he wants the organization to offer its members concrete ways that they can meet strategic goals. This includes the move to New York, home of Madison Avenue, making it easier for the MMA to interact with marketers and advertisers. It also includes educational initiatives, since as Mr. Wehrs said, “Right now it’s very difficult to put together a mobile campaign… there are lots of things an advertiser has to know just to do a text message campaign.”

(Note: We at mobileStorm understand this, and like the MMA hope to help mobile marketing newbies with the whitepapers titled SMS Or Die and Digital Marketing Best Practices For Geniuses, and with the webinar titled Making Money With Mobile Coupons.)

As far as growth, Mr. Wehrs noted the evolution of mobile marketing in new industries. Besides interest from consultant and content companies, he said, “Mobile banking is another example where we are seeing some of the banks coming to us and asking what can be done for their set of applications. Financial institutions in general are mobilizing.”

Meanwhile at the MMA’s Best Practices Forum, a diverse group of mobile industry professionals gathered to suggest what should be included in the organization’s upcoming set of best practices for the United States. The MMA releases updated best practices every June and December.

One of the biggest developments discussed at the forum was the CTIA’s plan to start monitoring every short code campaign, to check for compliance with both the MMA’s best practices and with individual carriers’ requirements.

Marketing experts also talked about creating not just standards, but also punishments regarding compliance with CBP and carrier requirements. They also noted that privacy standards will be more important than ever: As revenue from mobile campaigns increases, so will scrutiny into marketers’ behavior.

Sounds like the MMA is thinking ahead, not just for 2009, but beyond.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”

Californians woke up to the new year with a new law that bans text messaging while driving. The Golden State isn’t the only one; according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, texting is prohibited for drivers in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington state, and the District of Columbia.

Recalcitrant marketers might use this as an excuse to not use SMS campaigns. But they shouldn’t!

The benefits of SMS–high ROI that results in bigger revenue–are what all business will need during this recession. So it’s worth marketers’ efforts to create campaigns that effectively reach customers, stay within the law–and don’t cause accidents.

Foremost, try not to send messages out during rush hour or other periods when consumers are much more likely to be behind the wheel. Instead, text them just before they hit the road. For example, a restaurant promoting a lunchtime special should send the SMS at 11 a.m.–right when people are starting to wonder what they’re going to eat. A coffee place would do well to send an SMS coupon or other promotional message at 6 a.m., just before the big morning drive.

Also, if you have a campaign about a day-long event such as a sale or festival, it makes sense to send texts about it the night before–say, 9 p.m. on a weeknight. You’ll still generate the excitement of timely messaging (”there’s a 50% off sale on bedroom furniture tomorrow only!”)–and even give the consumer a few more hours to prepare. If you believe you’ll make a bigger splash by sending such messages the day of an event, then follow the early-morning rule that I suggested for coffee houses.

Weather, traffic, and news alerts can still be sent as usual. But if you haven’t already, consider offering the subscriber the choice of when and how often to receive such alerts–such as “every four hours” or “at 7 a.m. and at 7 p.m.” If you really don’t trust their judgement, then limit the choices to timeframes when they’ll be less likely to drive.

Anyone have any other ideas they’ve implemented? I’d like to hear about it!

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me”

The couple that spams together gets successfully sued together.

This week a federal court ordered spam marketing husband-and-wife team Henry Perez and Suzanne Bartok to pay a small Internet service provider (ISP) more than $236 million for sending out some 23 million emails advertising loan refinancing services. The messages were sent to the servers at CIS Internet Services in 2003–using the ironically-titled program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies.

Happily, this is just the latest news about spammers getting theirs. What I like about this story is that the little guy (CIS is a tiny ISP based in Clinton, Iowa) is fighting spammers one at a time–and winning. CIS’ triumph in the U.S. District Court in Davenport marks the tenth lawsuit in which it has prevailed, company owner Robert Kramer III said. Mr. Kramer has been at it for years: Wins include a $11.2 billion judgement against a Miami spammer in 2006, and a combined judgement of $1 billion after winning lawsuits against three spammers in 2005.

Mr. Kramer said during the most recent trial that the spam messages cut into his company’s bandwidth, making it harder for his customers to go on the Internet and costing CIS a lot of business. The number of CIS clients dropped from 5,000 in 2001 to 1,200 by late 2004.

For CIS, the drop was significant enough to prompt Mr. Kramer to go after those who messed with his bread and butter. Nevertheless, his successful lawsuits should prompt larger ISPs to follow through in their own anti-spammer actions. Even if it’s unlikely Mr. Kramer will collect the cash judgements owed him, he’s won on another front: CIS now gets only 10 to 15 million spam messages daily, down significantly from the 500 million it did in 2003.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager

“I’d rather you text me”